On 6/23/2022 at 1:50 AM, NorcalBassin said:

Never caught a cat on a spinnerbait. Went from I've got a good one to wth is that in about 5 seconds. ?

 

Gotta appreciate the tenacity of the little fellas.

 

Solid one to close out the morning.

Did you “know” it wasn’t a bass as you fought it, or until you saw it? I caught a nice-sized cat on a spinnerbait a few weeks ago and I immediately thought “nice bass!” followed by “waitadamnminnit, this ain’t no bass!”  ?

1 hour ago, BrianMDTX said:

Did you “know” it wasn’t a bass as you fought it, or until you saw it?

Schrodinger's bass 

I received the rod I ordered from St Croix Rods yesterday. It was one of the sales they had during customer appreciation day. These Reign rods only seem to be available during special events.

 

 

I put it to the torture test by hooking into a close to 3 pound, 19” River Smallmouth on a Ned rigged Strike King Rage Tail Ned Cut-R worm.

 

 

                               

I got out about 6:15 this morning. There was already a bass boat at the +/-30 acre reservoir so I high tailed it to the other end. I fished about 3 hours with only 2 dinks to show for it. I was about 3/4 way around the place in my kayak and headed down the dam throwing a weighted T-rigged Strike King Ocho (Senko) on the pads and letting it fall. It fell off once and didn't reach the bottom. I felt the resistance and set on her. I knew it was good. But this fish was STRONG. It was my jig rod so the fight didn't last that long. 8lb. 0 oz. Really close to my PB. And that's why I get up at 6:00 and go through the dinks. It only takes one fish to make a trip worthwhile.

 

1 hour ago, the reel ess said:

I havd a bad case of bass thumb today also .

My buddy got a hall pass from the wife and kids this weekend, said he wanted to catch a striper. Luckily they were jumping! Got them with walking baits 

 

then we took the boat out at 9:30 and re launched near the lake house to have her ready in the morning. Ran from 82 degree water at the dock up towards the mountains and 64 degree water. Only caught one smallie but it was fun on live shiner. Grilled one of the striper fillets today, butter and blackening . Mmmmm

 

Took the kayak out for a few hours this morning.I ended up catching my biggest bass so far this year(sad I know) on a 5" wacky rigged Morning Dawn Yum Dinger. I then made a rookie mistake of not checking the worm closely before casting again and missed another fish on the next cast. As soon as I went to set the hook the worm popped right off. 

@scaleface, @Jmilburn76, @LrgmouthShad, @the reel ess, @NYWayfarer
 

@N Florida Mike

awesome fish fellas

@TnRiver46  Have you thought of doing the free Tackle Direct tournament on the free Fishing Chaos app? $15k in prizes, they have categories for LMB, SMB striped bass over 28" and striped bass 16"-28".https://www.tackledirect.com/national-fishing-tournament-2022.html

4 minutes ago, Jmilburn76 said:

@TnRiver46  Have you thought of doing the free Tackle Direct tournament on the free Fishing Chaos app? $15k in prizes, they have categories for LMB, SMB striped bass over 28" and striped bass 16"-28".https://www.tackledirect.com/national-fishing-tournament-2022.html

Cool! I should check it out 

 

im not as good at getting fish to hold still with their mouth closed on a measuring board as you are! 

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

My buddy got a hall pass from the wife and kids this weekend, said he wanted to catch a striper. Luckily they were jumping! Got them with walking baits 

 

then we took the boat out at 9:30 and re launched near the lake house to have her ready in the morning. Ran from 82 degree water at the dock up towards the mountains and 64 degree water. Only caught one smallie but it was fun on live shiner. Grilled one of the striper fillets today, butter and blackening . Mmmmm

 

Looks like he enjoyed fighting that Striper. 

4 hours ago, the reel ess said:

I got out about 6:15 this morning. There was already a bass boat at the +/-30 acre reservoir so I high tailed it to the other end. I fished about 3 hours with only 2 dinks to show for it. I was about 3/4 way around the place in my kayak and headed down the dam throwing a weighted T-rigged Strike King Ocho (Senko) on the pads and letting it fall. It fell off once and didn't reach the bottom. I felt the resistance and set on her. I knew it was good. But this fish was STRONG. It was my jig rod so the fight didn't last that long. 8lb. 0 oz. Really close to my PB. And that's why I get up at 6:00 and go through the dinks. It only takes one fish to make a trip worthwhile.

 

Great fish!

3 minutes ago, GreenPig said:

Looks like he enjoyed fighting that Striper. 

Got some video! Forgot to post it 

 

 

 

I was trying many different lures today just for the fun of it, i usually do this when i am bored and need a reboot.

I threw a blue jig with a beaver trailer, crank baits, jerk baits, wacky rig, spinner baits, chatterbaits, pink tubes, flukes, 8 in kingtail worm, plastic life looking crawdads and hollow body frog.

The frog, super fluke and 8 inch worm didnt get bit today, all others did.

Pads still havnt developed yet in my frog areas but was really surprised my super fluke on a keel hook, underspin and texas rigged didnt get bit.

 

11 hours ago, BrianMDTX said:

Did you “know” it wasn’t a bass as you fought it, or until you saw it? I caught a nice-sized cat on a spinnerbait a few weeks ago and I immediately thought “nice bass!” followed by “waitadamnminnit, this ain’t no bass!”  ?

About 5 seconds in I assumed it wasn't a bass. Didn't have the head shakes that it should have and it just had that feeling of a cat/carp. That said, you always still hope it's a big bass that proves you wrong! 

Took the family out for panfish on Clifford lake in Montcalm county.  Didn’t do to bad considering I rarely fish for panfish.  We caught a lot of little panfish and caught 4 keepers 2 sunfish and 2 crappies.  One of the big crappies came in a Beatles spin along with a couple small bass. I based fish for the last hour only caught some little ones on a wacky rig.  We eventually put the 4 panfish back at the end of the day.  Wife and daughter had a good time 

First 3 lb. + bass in a while!

 

My inflatable boat is TU in the seaweed due to a ruptured seam (warranty replacement on the way), so I fished the bank a couple hours this morning. The pond is down at least a foot and the N half is completely covered in mats of algae. So I fished the SE side. Not as deep and still has a lot of algae on the bottom. Chucked a weightless Senko TR at first but only got nibbles from dinks. Decided to toss a squarebill figuring I could keep it off the bottom at least a 1’ and avoid getting the hooks fouled (still did). First few casts were blanks but I casted it again and it got hammered as soon as it went out of sight. Put up a good fight but got caught in a mess of algae near shore. Made it look like a real mess. Later caught one dink on a weightless Zoom Trick TR and a catfish nailed a Neko Macho TR as soon as it hit the water. Not much action, but the first bass made it worthwhile!

 

 

                                              

On 6/24/2022 at 9:47 PM, scaleface said:

Caught about 70 today . Worm and Frog mostly . These were my top two caught on a frog . A couple of four lbers .

Holy hell...70? That's what I catch in a month 

16 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

Holy hell...70? That's what I catch in a month 

The bigger fish came on frogs in the slop . Numbers came from brush piles . 

20" / 4lbs-14oz, jig-n-craw, black and blue. 

 

 

Rest of photos from pond fishing over the weekend. Two more over 4lbs. One 4.51 and another 4.78. Both of those were on the same day as the 6.19! Was lots of fun. I’ll be returning to big lake fishing.

More putt-putt boating than fishing today but finally anchored down at the far end of the lake and made some casts. One largemouth responded, only fish of the day but made the day. Felt odd not wearing a flotation vest and I don't recommend that (it went missing, must replace it) but my butt sits on a floatable cushion. Bass quickly released. Got her on the go-to setup: green & white paddle tail worm on a 1/8 oz jig head, with medium-light / fast spinning combo. Extremely productive on this southern Maine lake.

 

 

Heckuva day today. My buddy was wanting to get a gar on his fly rod. They usually don’t get right up on surface until the sun is hot so we tried out in the main channel for bass/striper for a bit. We could see skipjack jumping all around but couldn’t catch them. I had 5 live shiners that I had caught off my dock. I tossed one near some deep rip rap and hooked something big on my light spinning combo. I thought for sure it was a giant drum of catfish as hard as it was pulling. Then I saw a big ole spotted bass bulldogging under the boat. Got him in (with lots of backreel) and it was a fat 19” fish. Upon further photo review, I think maybe it was a meanmouth. What do y’all think?

So then we go hit the gar spot around 9:30 or 10 am and they are already surfacing everywhere. I caught one small one and we broke for lunch 

After lunch my buddy finally scores on a 45” gar on a fly. 

then a few minutes later he is telling me a story and sets the hook, I can see the fly rod surging, another gar a little smaller but it’s fighting like crazy 

 

then I got a nice crappie with live shiner to end the day